ANCYL nominates Kgalema for top job

Politics / 23 November 2012, 07:36am

Mogomotsi Magome

Deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe

Johannesburg -

The ANC Youth League’s national executive committee on Thursday officially nominated Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to be elected as president of the ANC at the party’s elective conference in Mangaung next month.

Motlanthe was unanimously nominated by the league as the few who wanted to nominate Zuma were outnumbered and did not reach a threshold for the nomination to stand.

Other nominations by the youth league include Mathews Phosa as deputy president, Fikile Mbalula as secretary-general, and Thenjiwe Mtintso as deputy secretary-general.

Tokyo Sexwale has been nominated by the league for treasurer-general. North West Premier Thandi Modise has been nominated for the position of chairwoman.

League deputy president Ronald Lamola said he was pleased with how the nomination proceeded, and said the league would accept any outcome from Mangaung.

“This process was not only about the nominations for people who should be elected in Mangaung, but also about the policy proposals that the league has been championing, including the nationalisation of the mines.

“Whoever is elected, we will be subjected to those leaders and we will accept the outcome. We will work with whoever is elected in Mangaung,” said Lamola.

The nomination for Motlanthe and Mbalula was wrapped up quickly, but the league took nearly five hours to vote on the nomination of the other four positions in the top six.

“We expected to finish much earlier, but were delayed by the comrades from the IEC [Independent Electoral Commission] with their meticulous process,” said Lamola.

One of the few dissenting voices during the nominations process in the national executive committee was that of Mduduzi Manana, who opposed the bid to oust President Jacob Zuma.

Manana said afterwards that he had made his view known and that he stood by it, but said he accepted that his view was defeated.

“That is how democracy works. One should accept when his or her view has been defeated. My view is that every sitting president needs to be given a second chance to proceed with the process and groundwork that he has done in the first term.

“I still stand by my view that President Jacob Zuma must be given a second chance to finish the work that he has started in his first term,” he said.

Manana, who was appointed by Zuma as deputy minister of higher education during the last cabinet reshuffle, also differed with the league’s leadership when it supported former president Julius Malema during his disciplinary issues.

He spoke against some leaders of the league when they queried the fairness of the process and claimed Malema was being targeted.